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Offend vs Avoid - What's the difference?

offend | avoid |

As verbs the difference between offend and avoid

is that offend is (transitive)  to hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult while avoid is to keep away from; to keep clear of; to endeavor not to meet; to shun; to abstain from.

offend

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (transitive)  To hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. We nearly crowned her we were so offended . She saw us but she didn't know us, did she?’.}}
  • (intransitive)  To feel or become offended, take insult.
  • (transitive)  To physically harm, pain.
  • (transitive)  To annoy, cause discomfort or resent.
  • (intransitive)  To sin, transgress divine law or moral rules.
  • (transitive)  To transgress or violate a law or moral requirement.
  • (obsolete, transitive, archaic, biblical)  To cause to stumble; to cause to sin or to fall.
  • * 1896 , Adolphus Frederick Schauffler, Select Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons , W. A. Wilde company, Page 161,
  • "If any man offend not (stumbles not, is not tripped up) in word, the same is a perfect man."
  • * New Testament'', Matthew 5:29 (''Sermon on the Mount ),
  • "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out."

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * offendedly * offendedness * offender * reoffend

    avoid

    English

    Verb

  • To keep away from; to keep clear of; to endeavor not to meet; to shun; to abstain from.
  • :I try to avoid the company of gamblers.
  • *1526 , Bible , tr. William Tyndale, Matthew 4:
  • *:The devyllsayde unto hym: all these will I geve the, iff thou wilt faull doune and worship me. Then sayde Jesus unto hym. Avoyde Satan.
  • *Milton
  • *:What need a man forestall his date of grief, / And run to meet what he would most avoid ?
  • *Macaulay
  • *:He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2012, date=June 19, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= England 1-0 Ukraine , passage=England could have met world and European champions Spain but that eventuality was avoided by Sweden's 2-0 win against France, and Rooney's first goal in a major tournament since scoring twice in the 4-2 victory over Croatia in Lisbon at Euro 2004.}}
  • (obsolete) To make empty; to clear.
  • :(Wyclif)
  • To make void, to annul; to refute (especially a contract).
  • *Spenser
  • *:How can these grants of the king's be avoided ?
  • (legal) To defeat or evade; to invalidate. Thus, in a replication, the plaintiff may deny the defendant's plea, or confess it, and avoid it by stating new matter.
  • :(Blackstone)
  • (obsolete) To emit or throw out; to void; as, to avoid excretions.
  • :(Sir Thomas Browne)
  • (obsolete) To leave, evacuate; to leave as empty, to withdraw or come away from.
  • *:
  • *:Anone they encountred to gyders / and he with the reed shelde smote hym soo hard that he bare hym ouer to the erthe / There with anone came another Knyght of the castel / and he was smyten so sore that he auoyded his fadel
  • *Francis Bacon
  • *:Six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room.
  • (obsolete) To get rid of.
  • :(Shakespeare)
  • (obsolete) To retire; to withdraw, depart, go away.
  • (obsolete) To become void or vacant.
  • Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing) . See

    Derived terms

    * avoid like the plague